Danse Macabre Remixes

Astralwerks; 2003

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So The Faint have finally made it into the 90s. Let's toast; Smart Drinks are on me. Coming off like The Cure's own transition into the last decade, Mixed Up, tracks from The Faint's wildly popular 2001 record Danse Macabre get molded here into to the throbbing glowstick beats and gigantic bronze cojones of famous producers such as Junior Sanchez, Photek, and Paul "Assembly Line" Oakenfold.

For the most part, each remix is based around the most identifiable facet of The Faint: the whiny, underdog-Simon-LeBon mewl of vocalist Todd Baechle. Conveniently, he's also the band's most annoying facet. (Oh, he's funny, and has the propensity to get naked at shows quicker than the strippers at the Blue Banana. I'm sure there's a lotta fuckin' urban disaffect gripping Omaha like a disease, but dudes! Blase 80s vox are the new emo howl: & I have grown weary of them.) However, even if your selective listening skills allow you to drown out Baechle's pukey purse-lipped coif, the actual remixes here-- with a few exceptions-- are mired in trahnce cliché, premeditated keyboard blasts, canny beats, and that "UH UH UH" pulsing low-end synth whir that blankets practically every cheap 90s house comp sold in the cut-out bin of yr local Fred Meyer's. It's all very inoffensive in its lightly perspiring drive, like hearing "Pure Energy" by the Information Society, ten times.

Okay, maybe only eight times. Two tracks stand out: The Calculator's minimal version of "Posed to Death" neutralizes Baechle's authoritative pronunciations (wait... is this guy even British?!) with Leila Cusack's pretty vocals, all over a balloony glitch track that sounds straight from the new Prefuse 73 record. And with maybe a tiny sense of irony, Ursula 1000 turns "Your Retro Career Melted" into a funky, bass-driven disco track infused with cowbell and handclaps.

Otherwise, each remix bleeds into the next with not-really-alarming anonymity. "The Conductor" is tackled by Madonna cohort Jacques Le Conti, aka the guy who remixed that critical Jack White blowjob, Electric Six's "Danger! High Voltage!" Paul Oakenfold does his intense, positive "enter the matrix" trance thing, and Tommie Sunshine mirrors that feel on "Let the Poison Spill from Your Throat", albeit with better beats and more subtleties. Photek gives "Total Job" an industrial makeover (complete with a chorus sung by an Apprentice of Satan) worthy of NIN's Pretty Hate Machine, before blending into Jagz Kooner's farting version of "Agenda Suicide". Mojolators, Junior Sanchez, even Medicine's operatic glitch... I think I got roofed and woke up in a desert rave.

Is this record The Faint's attempt for legitimacy in the dance world? Is it an attempt to crossover into a larger audience, i.e. the vast amount of people who inexplicably relate to and purchase Oakenfold records? Is it an attempt by Astralwerks to regain that portion of the indie rock audience they lost after what seemed like a straight year of nothing but Bare Essentials comps? All that's cool w/me, but Dance Macabre Remixes doesn't even have the energy to scream "JACK YO BODY" like virtually every 90s house comp ever. Instead, its overarching mediocrity sends the message: "This is preordained, socially acceptable dance music (possibly tailored for people who don't normally dance)." And everyone knows that "preordained" and "socially acceptable" are the carpool lanes on the freeway to B O R I N G.